


Surrender

by Adolphus Longestaffe (adolphus_longestaffe)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Omnic Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 00:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17519027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adolphus_longestaffe/pseuds/Adolphus%20Longestaffe
Summary: My second piece for the amazing They Loved Each Other Zine!





	Surrender

 

 

 

 

“You lied to me, Reyes.”

Several of the men standing in the commander’s tent look up quickly at the speaker, who has just entered. This is not the way in which Lt. Colonel Gabriel Reyes, Commander of SEP Detachment Alpha, and the single greatest soldier the world has ever known, is customarily addressed by his subordinates.

Colonel Reyes crosses his arms on his broad chest and eyes the newcomer up and down. “Oh yeah? About what, Morrison?”

His men’s eyes dart back to him, incredulous at his almost bantering tone, and the fact that the man who has addressed him this way still appears to be wholly bodily intact. Their commanding officer clears his throat and inquires as to whether their heads have become lodged within their rectums, and if latrine duty might remedy the problem. Wisely, they forgo a verbal response, opting to salute briskly and retreat from the tent.

“Well?” Reyes says, after the men have gone. “What did I lie about?”

“You told me we were all going to die,” Major Jack Morrison (Commander of SEP Detachment Bravo, currently in the process of merging with Detachment Alpha) replies, with an impish grin. “So, what’s this I hear about you having a plan to save us?”

“Hey, don’t worry,” Reyes shrugs. “We’ll probably still die. But at least we’ll make sure we’re the last ones.”

“I see,” Morrison nods. “I tentatively withdraw my accusation, then. Be advised, however, if I survive, I will be holding you personally responsible.”

“That a fact,” Reyes says, cocking an eyebrow. “Well, good news. If you think I’d risk myself to save your sorry ass, you’ve got another think coming.”

“That’s the Reyes I know!” Morrison gives his compatriot a hearty slap on the back. “Glad to see the war hasn’t changed you too much, chief.”

Reyes chuckles. “Chief, huh? Shit, it has been a while. No one’s called me that since they stuck these shoot-me signs on my sleeves and gave me a bunch of children with guns to look after. Come, sit. Drink?”

“Absolutely.”

Major Morrison follows Colonel Reyes to the steel folding-table, which also serves as his desk, and they sit down across from each other. Reyes shoves a stack of reports aside, then draws a bottle of tequila and a couple of shot glasses from a drab-green footlocker by his chair.

He fills the shot glasses and slides one toward Morrison. “Been a couple of years. How’ve you been?”

Morrison pauses to take a sip. “I guess…busy?”

“Busy is certainly a way to put it,” Reyes says, with a bitter laugh. “I heard about your field commission, Major Morrison. Extraordinary valor, courage under fire, outstanding leadership, and bravery above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Yeah, that’s…what they tell me.” Morrison’s hand goes self-consciously to his shoulder, as if to conceal the gold maple-leaf insignia. “It was unexpected, to say the least.”

Reyes squints at him over the rim of his glass. “Don’t think you deserve it?”

“I think with half the military dead, officer’s commissions were pretty much lying around for the taking,” Morrison says flatly. “Whether I deserved it or not, they needed me. But I do think I was the right choice.”

“I bet you do,” Reyes smirks. “Cocky little fuck.”

“But, do you?” Morrison says, looking up at him gravely. “Do you think I was the right choice for the job, Gabe?”

Hearing his first name spoken by this man in this way, dropped so casually, as if years and countless battlefields don’t lie between them, has an immediate and powerful effect on the rough, war-weathered Colonel.

“I do, Jack,” he says, avoiding his friend’s eye for the moment, and refilling their glasses to conceal his reaction. “And that’s what I told them when I recommended you.”

Jack blinks. “You recommended me?”

“I did. They called me and said you’d been selected for a field commission that would place you in charge of an SEP unit, and they asked for my opinion. I told them my opinion was that I’d like to win the war, and if they’d like that too, they should probably skip the foreplay and just make you a general.”

“Holy shit, you said that?” the blonde laughs, his bright blue eyes dancing with merriment. “What did they say?”

“They thanked me and said they would take it under consideration. The folks at the Army Personnel Office aren’t exactly famous for their sense of humor.”

“Thank you, Gabe. That means a lot to me.”

“Don’t go all mushy on me,” Gabe says gruffly. “It’s not that big a deal. They wouldn’t have called me if they weren’t already going to give it to you.”

“Well, thank you anyway.” Jack pauses and gazes down into his shot glass. “So, I guess we should talk about the, uh…elephant.”

Gabe leans back and crosses his arms. “Elephant?”

“The elephant in the room. The big, obvious issue no one wants to talk about.”

“I’m familiar with the expression, Jack. What elephant?”

Jack gives him a look. “Gabe, come on. If we’re going to work together, we have to acknowledge the fact that we were…that we used to—”

“Fuck?”

“Yeah. That.”

“You think that will affect our ability to carry out our duties?”

“You don’t think it will?”

Gabe shrugs. “It was two years ago, Jack. And you haven’t spoken to me since. It’s ancient history.”

“Two years isn’t that long,” Jack says quietly. “And the telephone works both ways.”

Gabe stares incredulously at the beautiful blonde seated across the table. When they’d split his team up and Jack had gone away, he had taken his superior officer’s beating heart with him. Gabe was left with nothing but a cheerful goodbye and a bloody, gaping hole in his chest. The wound was deep and ugly, but he had done his best to drown the pain in the relentless brutality of war. To harden himself until he was nothing but a soldier, inside and out. He’d almost believed he’d succeeded. And now Jack is here, sitting in his tent, talking about the operational capabilities of telephones and blithely tearing open the scar-tissue that Gabe has been so carefully building.

“What would I have said, Jack?” he says at last. “That we’d see each other again someday? How could I, when we both knew that wasn’t true and that they were sending us to die.”

“But we didn’t die, and now we are together again,” Jack says. “We’ll be working closely with each other every day. Our men’s lives will depend on the two of us being unified and in total agreement. I wanted to tell you that—”

“No,” Gabe snaps.

Jack looks up curiously. “No?”

“No,” Gabe repeats. “You don’t get to come in here and give me a speech about putting all that behind us and getting along for the sake of the team. Not after the way you left.”

“They sent me away, Gabe,” Jack frowns. “I had no more choice than you did.”

“You didn’t seem too broken up about it.”

Jack makes an exasperated gesture with his hands. “What should I have done? Should I have let everyone know I was miserable? Should I have asked for special orders I knew you couldn’t issue? Why would I make it harder for you than it had to be?”

“Exactly,” Gabe mutters into his tequila. “Harder for _me_.”

“I did what I had to do. It was never what I wanted,” Jack says, taking aim with those sapphire-blue eyes. He fires his shot. “I missed you, Gabe.”

Gabe opens his mouth, then shuts it. Jack’s shot, as always, has struck its mark with deadly accuracy, and he has to take a moment to recover his composure.

“You missed me?” he says lamely, making a half-hearted attempt at a joke. “I thought you never missed.”

Jack smiles. “Yes, I missed you, but I don’t miss twice. That’s what I was trying to tell you. I don’t want to put it behind us and get along. I want…you.”

Gabe shakes his head, but he can already feel himself being drawn in. Ensnared in that intoxicating aura that seems to radiate around Jack Morrison, sucking everyone he meets into his orbit and making them his willing slaves. He’s not immune to it, even now, and Jack knows it.

“That’s not how it works, Jack,” he says, struggling to maintain control. “You can’t just waltz into my camp after two years of silence and put that kind of… _claim_ on me. I’m your superior officer and we’re going to be leading these men together. We can’t be what we were. Not here.”

“I beg to differ,” Jack replies unconcernedly, waving away Gabe’s assertion of authority with practiced ease. He rises from his chair, stretching languidly like a preening housecat, the mask of boyish awkwardness entirely dissolved, now that the gloves are off. He steps around the table and stands beside Gabe’s chair, so close his knee is almost touching his thigh. “You can fight with me all you want, but we both know who’s going to win.”

Gabe looks up at him pleadingly. “I was in love with you, Jack. You never even tried to contact me. Two years without a word.”

“You’re still in love with me,” Jack says, low and husky (almost a purr, god damn him). His fingers twine softly into Gabe’s hair, raising goosebumps all down the back of his neck. “You waited for me all this time.”

Gabe tries to find his voice to make some sort of denial, but his head is spinning and his tongue feels thick and stupid in his mouth. He gazes helplessly into those deep, sea-blue eyes as Jack swings a leg over to straddle him. He has no defense. No power to resist. His hands wander up of their own accord to rest on Jack’s trim waist, as the familiar weight settles in his lap.

“Tell me you’re mine,” Jack whispers. His breath is hot and damp on Gabe’s ear. “Say it.”

Gabe balks, wavers, and relents. “I’m…I’m yours.”

He lets his forehead drop heavily onto Jack’s chest and gives a shuddering sigh. He’s spent so long fighting, he’d forgotten how good it feels to surrender. To lay down his arms and let this man hold him with his will, his strength, his tenacious and unyielding tenderness. Jack cradles his face in his hands and kisses him, soft and deep and bittersweet. It feels like coming home.

“I’m so tired, Jack,” he breathes, clinging tightly to his warm, solid body. “Please, just…say you won’t leave me again.”

“Never. You’re mine, Gabriel Reyes. I am never letting you out of my sight again. Besides, I can’t let you get all the credit for winning the war.”

Gabe’s dark brow furrows. “Jack, you should know…my plan is a last, desperate dash to save the world. It isn’t designed to preserve the lives of the soldiers.”

“Then we’ll die together.” Jack smiles his golden, sunlit smile. “But we might not.”

 

 


End file.
